Re: Little Monsters!

Well, historically it would probably be more accurate to ask when did it become _not_ obligatory for women to procreate, but I know just what you mean. I have cousins who are married and producing or in the process of producing mini-cousins and seem shocked and appalled when I say that I do not wish to do the same. But I do not think it would be _fair_ to a child to have me as a parent. I don't like children in anything other than the smallest doses. I love babies (mostly because they don't _talk_ yet. I can deal with the crying, but the talking? Come back when you're twenty, kiddo. ^_^) but anything older? No. My mother ran a daycare for more than half of my life, and I have enough experience to know that I should not be made responsible for another human life. *Amused* Hell, I can't take good care of my _cats_ without parental aid. *pause* Which may be why my parents never ask pointed questions about grand-children.

After all, they already raised me, and they're not as young as they used to be.

"She's at that awkward age. Too old for romantic misadventures, too young for mystic kung fu powers.

Re: Little Monsters!

So much has already been written on this post, and I guess there is nothing I could add except my own little story...

I'm 17. ...17!! That's so young. I have my entire future ahead of me. So I know that right now, I can do whatever I want. I play Dance Dance Revolution all the time, and that's twenty times better than thinking about college and marriage and all of that. You have to live now. And I do.

Well, then. Having said that... I was talking to my girlfriend the other day. Oh... I hate calling her my "girlfriend" because it really means so much more than that... either way, we were talking about what we were going to do with our lives. It was 2:00 in the morning, and we had been talking for about seven hours. We were talking about our lives and what we would want. Marriage and children and what decisions we were responsible enough to make now and what we should wait to say when we are older. Some of the words are exact and some are close, but she said something that I will never forget.

"One day, very far away, I want to look back and see something of my own. I want to have a child in my arms to sing to sleep. I want to have my children see me cry and tell me that things are okay. I want to be old in our home and I want to look at my children and have them say thank you. If the business woman on the 24th floor wants to tell me I'm crazy and ask me 'where's your sense of pride?' ...I'll smile knowing that I spent a life worthwhile."

I knew then and there that I would spend the rest of my life with her, having children, and never regretting a day of it. I knew that things will one day change, and I'll find myself held to the challenge of raising a child.

Kicking, screaming, fighting, yelling... "I don't want to go to bed!" "Why can't I stay out with this boy?" "I hate you!" Oh, I can see the whole picture. I can imagine it being something that would break me in half. But I want that challenge. I know that one day, they'll look back like I do now, and know that they want to be for their children what I was for them. Like I want to be for my parents what they were for me.

Children is not for everyone. I completely agree. But having children is something that I don't think everyone completely comprehends. A lifestyle. It's a complete change in the way that you live! And I think that if you feel that a child would bring you down, then remaining without children is obviously the right choice. Oh, but it hurts me so much to hear someone say that. Especially when I believe in the family for religious reasons.

Maybe it's not my place to tell exactly what being a father means to me and my religion... but for the LDS church, it's of divinity. And I can't impose my religion on others, but... if anything... I want those of you who make your choice to know what it means. At least to one teenager. Someone who has even less experience than you.

Re: Little Monsters!

I totally agree with you. I'm not single right now but I can almost guarantee that I'll never want children. I have too much contact with slobbery rugrats as it is. I intend to live a very free, dark, and modern primitive lifestyle as an adult and it just doesn't seem very befitting for a child. I want vacations, to be able to date without babysitters, and to have breakable objects and dangerous chemicals lying around my house. There are already enough semi-brain-damaged patriotic mothers that feel it's their duty to repopulate the homeland. I have no regret that I am not one of them.